The different areas within the Clinical Psychology Program benefit from extensive collaborations with other programs within the department and with other departments within the university. Within the department, there are strong ties and collaborations between the various areas within the Clinical Psychology Program; Cognition and Neural Systems; Developmental Psychology, and Psychology, Policy and Law Programs. Outside the department, various ties include the collaboration between the areas of Clinical Neuropsychology and the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry; between the area of Health Psychology and the Departments of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Family and Community Medicine, and surgery; between the area of Family Psychology and the Department of Family Studies; between the area of Psychotherapy Research and the Departments of Family Studies, Psychiatry and Family and Community Medicine; and between the Mental Health Evaluation and Policy area and the College of Law, the Departments of Psychiatry and Family and Community Medicine and with local clinical facilities involved in policy-related research.

Clinical Neuropsychology is that applied branch of Human Neuropsychology concerned with the causes, assessment, and treatment of psychological disorders due to brain injury or disease. Clinical Neuropsychology, in its current state, has moved away from a relatively exclusive emphasis on diagnosis toward understanding basic mechanisms in neuropsychological disorder and toward developing and evaluating new approaches to treatment and management. We encourage Clinical Neuropsychology students to develop additional specialized research and clinical expertise (e.g., gerontology, psychophysiology, cognitive-behavioral treatments, brain imaging) that will make them more broadly competent and more competitive in the job market. Current department research in Clinical Neuropsychology includes studies of: memory assessment and treatment in patients with both focal and diffuse neurological disease; alterations in emotion expression, experience and physiology in patients with focal (e.g., cingulate, orbital frontal) and diffuse cerebral damage; relationships between cognitive functioning and brain structural changes (by MRI) in degenerative diseases; cerebral electrophysiology in normal and disordered memory; electrophysiologic hemispheric asymmetries in depression; disorders of facial recognition; language disorder in dementia an aphasia; functional brain imaging (PET and FMRI) during emotional arousal; reliability and validity of procedures for the assessment and differentiation of dementing illnesses; awareness of deficit in patients with various neurologic disorders; and the assessment and management of stress among family members and professionals who provide care for neurologic patients.

Clinical psychologists have become increasingly involved in research and practice concerning health and health care policy. This trend is reflected within the Health Psychology emphasis in our Clinical Psychology Program. Examples of current topics of investigation within the department include: emotion and health; the assessment and treatment of insomnia; cognitive and cardiovascular consequences of sleep apnea; repression, self-disclosure, and health; individual- and family-level factors in the management of long-term chronic illnesses; evaluation of the impact of disorders and their treatment on quality of life; and assessments of the psychical health consequences of divorce.

The importance of family process and structure in both problem maintenance and change has long been recognized within clinical psychology, and recent approaches to family consultation and therapy have become increasingly sophisticated. The Clinical Psychology Program offers the opportunity to develop special expertise in both family research and approaches to family-level intervention. Examples of current topics of investigation within the department include: Couple interaction research; the role of relational quality in managing physical illness, including neurologic disorders; relational moderators and mediators in couple and family therapy; and research related stress and coping following relationship upheavals.

Intervention research has expanded in its spectrum to include basic research on the process of change, in addition to the pragmatic focus of outcome studies. The study of change processes investigates cognitive, motivational and familial variables as moderators and mediators of behavior and behavior change. Psychotherapy research of department faculty associated with this area include the process and outcome of a variety of behavioral, cognitive, systemic, experiential and integrative modes of therapeutic interventions. Specific faculty research interests include: Integrative models in the treatment of depression; the specifics of acupuncture treatment for depression; behavioral and systemic interventions (e.g., for addition); resistance to change; and evaluation of mental health service delivery to different ethnic and cultural groups.

An effective mental health system depends on implementation of policies that reflect careful evaluation of program and interventions involved. Accomplishing useful evaluations is a challenge to the methodological and quantitative skills of researchers, and to their policy knowledge. Further, translating evaluation findings into policy recommendations is not often a simple process. The Clinical Psychology Program includes faculty with considerable strength in research methodology and program evaluation, the establishment and implementation of mental health policy and community psychology. Current department research in this area includes: quality assurance in service delivery; mental health - criminal justice interactions; competencies required for working with the severely mentally ill; the effectiveness of capitated payment systems for the severely mentally ill; the nature of specialization and related advertising for psychological services; and the relationship between training and performance in clinical activities.